Borders hosts Britain’s first-ever elite-level mountain bike cross-country world championship success

Great Britain's Tom Pidcock celebrating winning the men's elite cross-country Olympic mountain bike race during this year's UCI world championships at Glentress Forest on Saturday (Photo by Andy Buchanan/AFP via Getty Images)

Glentress Forest saw Tom Pidcock crowned as Britain’s first-ever elite-level mountain bike cross-country world champion on Saturday as part of this summer’s inaugural International Cycling Union global championships.

The West Yorkshire 24-year-old went from 30th place to fifth within two of the men’s Olympic race’s eight laps, got ahead of ten-times world champion Nino Schurter with two laps to go and went on to cross the finish line 19 seconds ahead of New Zealand’s Sam Gaze in 1:22:09.

Switzerland’s Schurter, 37, ended up third, 15 seconds behind Gaze, 27.

Pidcock’s world mountain bike title win near Peebles follows a gold medal at the 2020 Olympics in Japan two years ago and his 2022 cyclo-cross world title, as well as a Tour de France stage win last year and victory at Italy’s Strade Bianche road race in spring this year.

Great Britain's Tom Pidcock taking part in the men's elite cross-country Olympic mountain bike race during this year's UCI world championships at Glentress Forest on Saturday (Photo by Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)

It also came after a third-place finish in the championships’ cross-country short-track race last Thursday, won by Gaze.

“It feels good. It’s a big relief. It’d been a long week building up to it,” said Pidcock, of Leeds, afterwards.

“In front of my home crowd, it’s pretty special.

“Coming down the final straight, I could finally soak it all in. Before that, the last few laps were so stressful.

Great Britain's Tom Pidcock celebrating winning gold in the men's elite cross-country Olympic mountain bike race during this summer's UCI world championships at Glentress Forest on Saturday (Photo by Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)

“My gears were not working on the last lap – they were jumping on every climb – and Gaze was coming behind. I thought it could all go in the bin at any moment.”

Pidcock had targeted success in Saturday’s race as one of his priorities for this season, giving the previous weekend’s road race a miss so he could focus fully on his title bid, and he was glad to see that decision pay off.

Holland’s Mathieu van der Poel, winner of that 168-mile road race from Edinburgh to Glasgow, opted to double up but went out on the opening circuit of Saturday’s Olympic race at Glentress.

Pidcock’s victory followed controversy ahead of the race as officials made an 11th-hour switch to world cup rules to move road-racers Pidcock, van der Poel and Slovakia’s Peter Sagan forward to the fourth row of the grid rather than the positions further back their rankings would have warranted ordinarily.

Great Britain's Tom Pidcock celebrating winning gold in the men's elite cross-country Olympic mountain bike race during the inaugural UCI world championships at Glentress Forest on Saturday (Photo by Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)

Having taken time out of his Tour de France preparations to collect Union Cycliste Internationale points in world cup races in Novo Mesto in Slovenia in May, Pidcock denounced that late grid rejig as “bulls***”.

“It’s pretty outrageous,” he said. “A rule like that needs to be put in place in January.

“I sacrificed three weeks of my preparation for the tour to try and get some points and this week they changed the rule. You can’t do that. It's not fair.”

Worcestershire’s Evie Richards had to make do with sixth place, 2:39 back, in the elite women’s race at Glentress as France’s Pauline Ferrand-Prevot retained her Olympic title as well as her short-track champion status.